


I Wanna Get Better!

by montes-carpatus (Carpathyah)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Optimism, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 14:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3123416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carpathyah/pseuds/montes-carpatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His life has turned into a very boring life simulator, because he was stuck on one mood and one mindset, and you couldn’t fast-forward time and it was just as bad as if his life was put in pause to fix the pool behind his apartment complex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wanna Get Better!

**Author's Note:**

> Based off: I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers

He flipped on the television, and he went straight to the weather channel because they were announcing a huge storm up in Queens and he wanted to be sure that he’ll need a coat to get to work that morning, or not be even half-arsed to get out of bed that morning and call in sick for the third time in two months, because his stomach is always in knots and twists over his ex-girlfriend that hasn’t called back in two months despite knowing it was over for good.

The weatherman announced no snow.

He called in sick.

It snowed anyways.

His life has turned into a very boring life simulator, because he was stuck on one mood and one mindset, and you couldn’t fast-forward time and it was just as bad as if his life was put in pause to fix the pool behind his apartment complex.

What was it? Three years?

Yeah.

Three years that he had spent it with her, and he believed it had made his life a million times better but he kissed her, smudged her pink lipstick across her cheek and all over his lips, and it was like he was tasting plastic but he felt her hands and his waist, pulling on his shirt to bring him closer. He pulled her, because he was touching another human being and it was enough to keep him on the ground for the night.

He never liked the taste of alcohol, or understood why his friends would brag about going out all night and drinking until Monday didn’t exist anymore, and there was enough weed smell in the air that there was no way in hell that the neighbours would believe that there was a skunk in the middle of the New York State, and he wouldn’t be able to get it out of his clothes as he tried to keep up with them as they ran down the empty dark streets, screaming and yelling, and maybe if he screamed and yelled profanities, maybe he would feel alive for a night.

But there he was, in bed with this woman he has been dating for two years, and her skin is really soft and she smells of vanilla cupcakes mixed with the floral scent of her cheap shampoo. He curled her dark hair around his finger while she was asleep, or pretending that she was asleep.

He had met her during a night of foolish antics with his friends, or trying to feel their adrenaline as they went into bars and he ordered orange juice because he just didn’t like the taste and he just paid five dollars for a thirty five cent glass of orange juice, and he might’ve just missed her if she didn’t hear his name from his friends. and she promised that she only had one-shot of Tequila, but he tasted more than one. A kiss turned, into a date, and it ended up with a relationship.

It did not make him feel more alive, even though he believed for a moment, as the orgasm hit him, that he wasn’t an emotionless robot.

“Hey, we should meet up sometime, you seem cool,” he had said in his headset. He didn’t respond right away as he shot two more men in the game and he thought about it for a little bit, carefully, thoroughly.

“Yeah, we should,”

He should’ve put on a helmet, or two, before he got on the train and off to the City, because he didn’t think he would fall so hard and he didn’t know what falling in love really was because he was staring at this curly haired man in a train station, and he didn’t think that his heart can beat so hard in his chest, but whatever it was, it gave him an amount of hope that he never thought he had before, and maybe he was just having a heart attack behind the wheel and he was going to drive right into oncoming traffic and he didn’t have enough time to hit the brake before everything came colliding in front of his eyes.

“Hey Ray, we should get going,” he smiled. His lips curled into a smile, and maybe it was just an adrenaline rush, but whatever it was, his chest was expanding and his lungs weren’t surviving his laughing fits and since when does laughing give him stomach cramps?

What was actually feeling the pavement under his feet? When was the last time his food didn’t taste like clay with added salt and fat? Why was his head spinning to the sound of this man’s voice? He always wondered if he was gay or not, but maybe he never cared and love was just a construct made by hormones and Cosmopolitan magazines that tell girls that if a guy really likes you he will be texting you twenty times a day, and wish you good morning and wish you good night and he will take you on nice dates (was this a date?) and he actually did not like it if you put a donut on a dick and ate it off (what the fuck?) and maybe if you put on your lingerie (but he was supposed to love you the most when you were at your most comfortable) and danced a little bit on the table that maybe you’ll get his attention.

When did birds sing so beautifully?

Was New York City always so noisy and busy?

Why was his hand so lonely?

And maybe when the day ended, when Michael put his arms around his waist and gave him a hug goodbye, that he didn’t actually want to let go, and he wanted him to be like his ex-girlfriend, that kissed him only minutes after knowing his first name (and knew his last name after a month) and he wanted to bring him home to his shitty apartment and find that old shopping cart from the alleyway and show him what it meant to be drunk without ever tasting beer.

He got off his train to Queens, and it was one in the morning, and his face was flushed and his hands were dry, and the air was cold as it hit his face. He walked up the street, as he thought about his life in entirety. The cars were loud and honking at the interstate.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?!” Ray shouted at the cars.

He had friends, he was sure of that, they were good friends, but he had constructed a brick wall around himself and while he thought he was breaking it down with whatever antic he was into, it was just built up again and his ex-girlfriend might as well been a distraction for the time being because he never knew how extremely LONELY he really was and maybe he needed Michael in his life because he was a joy of sunshine and he was honest and perhaps even concerned for him, and he just wanted to hang out and eat food and play shitty ass games from a state away, and there he was a one in the morning at the corner of a busy interstate, screaming at himself because he just wanted to feel something positive for once and he had no idea what was wrong with him, and he was going to fix it but he was going to need erase everything from the day before that day, and it will always be tomorrow, because Michael is in the tomorrow-world and he makes his heart do jumps in his chest and perhaps he was like the alcohol he never tried, and if he tasted his lips, he would get drunk.

He splashed some cold water on his face as soon as he entered the bathroom, not caring if he got his shirt wet and the counter. It was cold, it shocked him. His heart was beating a million kilometers an hour, and he just wanted to hold onto the feeling of what it was to drive against traffic and avoid all the cars going towards him.

He pulled his headset on and invited Michael to the first game he was connected to.

“Hey, you home now?”

“Well yeah, doesn’t take me 3 hours to come home, you okay there?”

“I have no idea how I am feeling.”

Michael didn’t respond but he joined the game anyways, and Ray pushed on the buttons on his controller as he felt his breath fall short, and it felt like he was running a marathon, but instead he was turning the wheel, and he was going to die soon anyways, and the preacher on the headset is screaming at him to stay in the game and he just had 10 kills in two minutes, and if that was impressive, he didn’t know what was.

He was going to do something, and he was going to do something incredible but he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing but he was feeling ALIVE, and he started to talk in the headsets to tell people how to get the achievement to the video game he was playing.

Though, through the times he wish he could keep his heart beating faster to the drums to the song, the loneliness would sink in at 11:30pm while he was trying to sleep, and his head could only think of the man he had the wonderful good luck of seeing with his own eyes. And suddenly, as his heart started to slow down, he was back to feeling like an entity separate from his body and he would grip at his pillow before throwing it across the room, and the need to scream was like the need to breathe, and you can’t scream if you’re not breathing, and the room was suddenly too stuffy and he was breathing in lava. He opened his window and let the air fill his room and touch his naked chest.

“I wanna get better!” he screamed over the traffic beneath him.

He screamed again, and again until his lungs burned and he needed to see Michael Jones in the form and touch him because he’s starting to think he’s not real but, there’s photographs on his phone of them together and he thinks he’s dreaming but he’s telling himself that MICHAEL JONES EXISTS.

Maybe, he was feeling human again, because Michael is coming to see him again, and this is becoming a normal thing, and he’s laughing as hard as he can at Michael and himself and this is an amazing feeling and he doesn’t want to let it go and go home.

“I think I’m in love with you,” he confessed.

“You think? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You exist, don’t you?”

“I’m right here, you fucking idiot.”

“That’s good.”

Grape soda never tasted so sweet. And maybe it’s because it’s lingering on Michael’s lips as he kisses Ray with full force. And he’s kissing back. He’s pulling on Michael’s shirt, and his heart is going fast again and he just wants to touch him, touch his flesh, and he’s thinking that he’s been broken for so long, that he couldn’t experience his first time as fully as he could. Ray wants to get out of the arcade they’re in and go back to his place. And he does, he’s holding his hand on the subway, and he doesn’t care that people are staring at these two young men who are holding hands and telling each other weird things about their lives like they just met.

Michael’s skin was soft, softer than her’s, but he thinks that she didn’t exist and there was only ever Michael Jones in his life, and he’s pulling down his pants in the darkness of his room (who cares about light anyways?) and he’s cupping his face to kiss him more and more because he’s in love, he’s in love, so much in love, and it’s the first time he’s ever been in love, and he wants to stay in love until the day he dies or until his body is in a pretty casket and he’s moving on to his next life, and he’s still remember Michael Jones.

And he’s panting, because Michael is going down on him, and he didn’t think he could moan as loud as he could and he’s feeling fucking great and he doesn’t want it to end because the stimulation is making him laugh while he moans and it sounds so fucking weird to Michael but to Ray, he’s about to cry, because he’s never felt happier in his life and he’s getting better, and if it meant getting a blow job to feel great, he’ll take forty.

But Michael is leaving for Austin, and Ray is feeling the darkness come back to him, and Michael is there, always there, standing with him at the airport, that he’s going to do whatever it takes to bring him down there to Texas, but Ray is clinging onto his shirt telling him not to leave, not when things were getting better, and Michael is upset, because he doesn’t want him to go back, and things will get better, and he’s not a walking medication and he’s going to have to survive without him for a little while and Ray is feeling tears fall down from his eyes from the first time in forever and suddenly, his heart doesn’t want to beat anymore, and the plane has left the airport with his beloved and he’s going to be all alone in New York.

And he woke up early that January morning, feeling just as numb as before Michael Jones had walked into his life, and his heart is back to this block of ice that he can’t shake out of. And he might as well walk onto the road and wait until the car to hit him, but his phone buzzes

and he opens the message

_Love you Ray._

And he gets out of bed, with the heavy feeling in his chest and pulls on his sneakers and some warm clothes, and he runs.

And relapses are part of the journey, he reminds himself. His heart isn’t a block of ice, nor is he a robot, and he runs faster, and he lets the warmth of the exercise warm up his cheeks and his hands. And he’s feeling his heart pump blood through his veins, and he really is alive, because his heart is still going, it’s still pumping life through him.

Death would be boring now, because he’s working towards the man in the South with the tattoos on his arms and the freckles on his cheeks and the brown curls on his head. And he’s so in love with that man, and that man might as well be in love with him, and they’re going to work together in a studio recording each other say stupid things while playing stupid games and it’s going to be great, and he’s going to get all the kisses in the world, and everything is going to be great.

Ray stops at the intersection, and stares at the cars as he catches his breath. And everything seems alright, and everything is shit at the same time because he’s now a balancing act between driving the car in the right lane or driving towards traffic, and he’s damn well going towards the safe path because he wants to stay alive, live, and love.

“I wanna get better!” he screams one last time.


End file.
